After Talking With Moro, Bolsonaro Maintains Federal Police Director-General

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Moro and Bolsonaro met this week, shortly after the president’s return to Brasília. Bolsonaro spent nine days in a hospital in São Paulo after a fourth procedure since the stabbing to his abdomen in 2018.

The two had already met in São Paulo when the minister visited the president.

Director-General Valeixo, who was on vacation and returned to work on Thursday, September 19th, had seen his post threatened by the president’s comments.

In mid-August, Bolsonaro said he might replace the director-general of the Federal Police. At the time, the president had stated that he was in charge of appointing the occupant to the post, and not minister Sérgio Moro, to whom the PF report.

Days later, during a seminar at the Ministry of Justice, Minister Sérgio Moro defended Director-General Maurício Valeixo.

In the background, Moro supposedly signaled that if Valeixo was fired without his consent, he could resign; Moro has officially denied this on the “Em Foco” show on GloboNews.

In the government, ministers aligned with the military have been quietly repeating that if Moro were to leave the government, the president’s attrition rate would be immeasurable, particularly in his anti-corruption rhetoric – one of the pillars of the campaign that elected Bolsonaro.

But the backdrop to the controversy involves the suspicion that Moro is a presidential candidate for 2022 – which the minister has already denied.

One minister actually told a blog on Wednesday, September 18th, that “there was no need to change Valeixo while Moro was being “just and gentle” with the president.

And that the “conspiracy theories” that feed Bolsonaro over Moro’s potential candidacy are produced by the “anger group,” the president’s advisors who do not work in government.

Valeixo is Moro’s trusted choice, but he has been in the sights of President Bolsonaro’s group in recent months.

For Moro’s allies, Valeixo’s “doom” was influenced by the dismissal of a police chief from Rio de Janeiro, in charge of an investigation into social welfare crimes, who mentions a man identified as Hélio Negão, who would be the namesake of federal deputy Helio Lopes (PSL-RJ), known as “Helio Negão” – a long-time friend of the President.

The conclusion is that “groups in the PF” were working to “taint Valeixo and Ricardo Saadi” before the president. Bolsonaro said he would replace the Federal Police superintendent in Rio de Janeiro, Ricardo Saadi, because of “management and productivity” problems.

On the same day, however, the PF released a note saying that the replacement had no relation to Saadi’s productivity, and announced that the post would be taken by Carlos Henrique Oliveira Sousa, from Pernambuco.

However, the following day, Bolsonaro reacted to Sousa’s name saying that it would be Alexandre Silva Saraiva, from Manaus, and affirmed: “I am the one in charge”.

With the permanence of Valeixo as director-general of the PF, Moro continues to work in the Ministry of Justice and, next year may be appointed to the Federal Supreme Court (STF), according to his allies.

Source: G1 Globo